phil1066: Thanks all - I left Telecom/xtra for a reason - dont want to return, dont want to pay anything to them per month, not $2.95 or $20 or even (wasnt expecting to be given a sales pitch on here either) to return to one of the broadband packages.

I dont understand how they say that all photos will be "lost" - as Flickr states:

"Are my photos ever deleted?

No, your photos will not be deleted, unless you do it yourself, or fail to play by our Community Guidelines."

So how does that work?

I'm a photographer, have family photos in their, shared albums etc with family in the UK, belong to local photographers clubs and have contact with other photographers in NZ :-(

I suggest you find someone else who is a Telecom customer with Broadband service and transfer your Xtra account to them if they are agreeable if you wanted to keep the xtra and thus Flickr Pro account since you have ceased your billing relationship with Telecom.

Thanks - gonna jump on social media to see what I can do with Yahoo / Flickr directly - didnt realise that having a Flickr Pro account with my broadband package a few years back would mean a lifetime commitment - htats hardly fair is it?

If you want something that you can manage you should investigate OFF-ISP offerings - direct subscription to Flickr Pro, direct subscription to on-line backup plans, your own domain name and email addresses, etc.

What happens is that a lot of people start using services offered by ISPs without looking towards a future where changing ISP is easy as changing clothes - well, it is.

phil1066: Thanks all - I left Telecom/xtra for a reason - dont want to return, dont want to pay anything to them per month, not $2.95 or $20 or even (wasnt expecting to be given a sales pitch on here either) to return to one of the broadband packages.

I dont understand how they say that all photos will be "lost" - as Flickr states:

"Are my photos ever deleted?

No, your photos will not be deleted, unless you do it yourself, or fail to play by our Community Guidelines."

So how does that work?

I'm a photographer, have family photos in their, shared albums etc with family in the UK, belong to local photographers clubs and have contact with other photographers in NZ :-(

Not a big Flickr user but, surely there's a way to download all of your photos. Suggest you do that anyway, in case something happens and you lose access to Flickr despite your efforts.

There's no "sales pitch" here. The option is above: download everything now, store on your PC, make sure you have an online backup (in case you lose your laptop, it gets stolen, deleted by mistake or malware) and never use an ISP service to be truly independent.

"Have you looked into changing your Flickr email to another address, then simply paying the Flickr Pro levy yourself?"

When I tried this is what I got:"Yahoo! Broadband Partner users are not authorized to transfer their Flickr account to another Yahoo! ID"

This sounds like a Flickr limitation not a Telecom one, have you asked Flickr support why you can't change your account to Flickr Pro and change your Yahoo Id / email address associated with the account?

Based on a couple of old threads on the Flickr help forum (http://www.flickr.com/help/forum/en-us/72157629453352268/ for example), Flickr can transfer it manually for you if you contact their support department - you just can't do it from the frontend. So put in a help ticket and they should be able to sort it for you.

As good as advice "your should have a backup is" it mostly doesn't help. For most people I would expect the issue is less the missing photos, but the missing metadata (titles, descriptions), grouping in collections and sets - that is the issue. Something that goin g to the original photo won't help.

Flicker pro has always been a service just for telecom customers if you have an active account with them. Otherwise you have to pay flicker seprately. I don't see what the issue is. If the OP wants to keep the account, just pay flicker directly. It sounds like they have been getting a paid service for a long time for free, which isn't really something to complain about, it was always going to end at some point..

phil1066: Thanks all - I left Telecom/xtra for a reason - dont want to return, dont want to pay anything to them per month, not $2.95 or $20 or even (wasnt expecting to be given a sales pitch on here either) to return to one of the broadband packages.

I dont understand how they say that all photos will be "lost" - as Flickr states:

"Are my photos ever deleted?

No, your photos will not be deleted, unless you do it yourself, or fail to play by our Community Guidelines."

So how does that work?

I'm a photographer, have family photos in their, shared albums etc with family in the UK, belong to local photographers clubs and have contact with other photographers in NZ :-(

It means when xtra withdraws your login you wont be able to login your flickr ... It will still be there, but no human can log into it